Electric Buses in CVSD

Superintendent Pinckney, COO Jensen, and CVU student Ethan Lisle

Ethan speaks on behalf of CVSD

Ethan and DEC commissioner, Emily Boedecker

The Champlain Valley School District has been selected to be a partner in the Agency of Natural Resources Electric School and Transit Bus Pilot Program! The announcement reads:

"Champlain Valley stood out in both your level of support for and engagement around this pilot and our confidence in your capacity to be a great Project Partner in deploying electric buses."

 At an event announcing the grant recipients on December 19, CVU student and Environmental Action Club (ENACT) member, Ethan Lisle, spoke on behalf of CVSD. The Commissioner from the Vermont Department of Environmental Conservation, Emily Boedecker, presented the grant award to Ethan. Superintendent Pinckney and COO Jeanne Jensen were present as well. CVSD is one of three Vermont school districts that are recipients of this grant.

On Town Meeting Day, voters will see a ballot article for our share of the cost of two electric buses (our share is the equivalent of two diesel buses, with the grant making up the substantial difference.) The purchase of two school buses is proposed as part of the continual replacement cycle to ensure that buses in our fleet are no older than 15 years. If approved, the electric buses will be based at the Allen Brook School in Williston.

The Champlain Valley School District community prides itself on being a leader in sustainable practices.This opportunity allows us to not only transport students more safely and efficiently, but to make a concrete example of living up to our values. We are excited to take such an important role in helping Vermont reduce carbon emissions and improve energy efficiency. We hope to see the electric buses rolling through CVSD next fall.

Outstanding Teachers in CVSD

"Every year, the College of Education and Social Services (CESS) at the University of Vermont, together with Vermont supervisory unions and school districts, the Vermont Agency of Education, and the Vermont NEA, join to honor the accomplishments of our state’s outstanding educators."
(from the Outstanding Teacher's Day website)

Today is Outstanding Teachers Day. CVSD's two outstanding teachers this year are Leanne Morton (CVU) and Miranda Johnson (HCS).

   

Miranda with HCS Principal, Suzan Locke

   

Leanne with CVU Principal, Adam Bunting

Principals from their schools shared the following about each of them for the ceremony.

Leanne Morton

Leanne Morton:
To observe Leanne’s classroom is to witness a collaborative, engaged, inspired community of learners. Deep Latin study is punctuated by laughter and joyful exclamations from students and teacher alike. Since 2000, Leanne has been a champion of Latin and--more importantly--teaching that puts relationships at the center of learning. To describe her classroom alone, however, is a disservice to the global education students have discovered under her guidance. From initiating trips to Italy or sustaining travel to France, Leanne has ensured that dozens of students discover a larger world. She is a model of collegiality and professionalism and lives the values of CVU. 

Miranda Johnson

Miranda Johnson:

Miranda Johnson, a Hinesburg Community School Kindergarten teacher, has been selected as a 2019 Vermont Outstanding Teacher of the Year. Miranda continuously demonstrates a commitment to creating an inspirational and harmonious classroom that supports student development and achievement! She demonstrates characteristics of inspiring teaching which include enthusiasm for teaching; empathy and warmth towards all students; fostering positive relationships with all students; creating a positive learning environment; and recognizing student strengths.

I honestly do not know what I would do without Miranda as a teammate. She is organized, educated, and honestly one of the nicest people I know. I love my job, but I love it even more because I get to work side by side with one of my best friends. Miranda goes above and beyond for her students. She is constantly finding highly engaging and educational lessons. When you walk in her tidy classroom, you observe students having so much fun, they don't realize they are learning. I am so very lucky to call her my teammate and my friend. I am so proud of her and honored to work as her teaching partner!" ~ Alyssa Lasher

CVSD congratulates and thanks Leanne and Miranda for their hard work, compassion, and dedication to all students. 

CVU Sleepout for Spectrum

Thank you to Mia Brumsted, student co-president at CVU, for sharing this post and photos with us.


On Thursday night, 61 CVU students and faculty (and two dogs) slept outside in solidarity with the homeless youth in our community. Despite some rain and intense wind in the morning, the sleep out was a major success. We raised over $7,000 for Spectrum Youth and Family Services and their efforts to support homeless and at-risk youth. After the rain died down at about 11pm, many students reemerged from their tents to sing and play games around the campfire. After a chilly night with little sleep, everyone woke up early the next morning to get to clubs and classes on time in order to experience the difficulties that students with home insecurity face every day.

Here's a link to the WCAX story about the Sleepout.

CCS 7th and 8th Graders Work with the Clemmons Family Farm

CCS Omega students had a wonderful afternoon earlier this week! This visit was a collaboration around the Vermont Reads book March, Book 1, and was made possible by the Clemmons Family Farm with the support of a Schip's Grant.


Social Justice Workshop with Clemmons Family Farm

All seventh and eighth grade students participated in a workshop that touches on social justice include themes like identity, diversity, courage, and helping one another in the face of injustice. This work connects to the earlier field trip this year to CVU and the reading many did this summer of March (and other books). Four artists came in to share their own experiences and skills with the students.

Group 1
Mr. Desmont, Visual artist #1/Painting activity: The students engaged in a painting activity. He added in stories of his childhood in Haiti

Group 2
Miss Hannon, Visual artist #2/Drawing activity: The students did a line-drawing activity.

Group 3
Mr. Dyke, Musician/Musical storytelling activity: Mike brought some musical instruments and told stories of Jamaica and how music was used to combat poverty and achieve education for many young people growing up there

Group 4
Ms. Edsomwan, Poet/Poetry activity: She shared a presentation about her own story and did a poetry activity with the students.

Thanks to Karyn Lunde for the photos in this slideshow and to Heidi Huestis for sharing the details for this post. 

HCS Students Give Back

Hinesburg Community School recognizes three students who have gone above and beyond to help hungry children in our school community. As part of their Personalized Learning Plan project (PLP), seventh-grade students Ezra Dziurzynski, Kate Roberts and Sage Peterson have been working hard to raise money to purchase food for HCS students in need.

In addition to putting a posting in Front Porch Forum and canvassing neighborhoods in Hinesburg, they designed their own website to spread the word and raise money. They managed to collect an impressive $505.00 worth of community donations! The girls then went to Lantmans, where they purchased $330.00 worth of groceries. After separating the groceries into 15 equal bags, they brought the food items to the Hinesburg Food Shelf. The students donated the remaining $175.00 to HCS to make snack packs for needy students. What an awesome group of students!

Thank you to the folks at HCS for sharing this story with us. 

SCS Students Create a Digital Tour of the Shelburne Museum

It's never too late to share exciting happenings as a part of the CVSD story! This project happened a few weeks ago with the 6th graders at Shelburne Community School. Teacher Diana Rich contributed the following to help describe the work.

This was our 3rd year doing a project based learning partnership with the Shelburne Museum and we were supported by the museum educators, Mollie Davis and Holly Miller. 

The driving question for this project is: "How do we as historians create a digital tour that engages middle level students?" 

At the project launch, students experienced a "boring tour" and then they were presented with the task of creating a digital tour. The students gathered evidence and analyzed evidence from the museum and created a digital map using the platform ThingLink. 

Here is one of the projects created by 4 students. This was the first year that all 6th graders at SCS experienced this project.

New Murals At WCS

If you walk into Williston Central School any time soon, you're bound to notice some incredible new art greeting you. Teachers Julie Rogers and Sara Beeken submitted and were awarded a CVSD Innovation Grant to make this possible. Artist-in-residence, Sally Duback, worked with students to create these powerful, bright, and welcoming installations. Julie provided us with more information about the project and outlined the next phase.

The smaller of the 2 murals (4' x 6') is entitled "All Are Welcome"  and was completed by 3rd and 4th graders. It is located in the front entrance on the left as you enter the building. That space has particularly nice lighting and welcomes everyone into the building. The larger of the 2 murals (6' x 12') is just inside the back entrance to the building which gets a lot of traffic as well. That mural is entitled " Sustainable Vermont".

Students were asked to make drawings about the themes of diversity & inclusion and sustainability. Students began by discussing what the themes meant to them and then sketched designs. The student sketches were sent to Sally Duback who took bits and pieces from them, traced them onto good old fashioned overhead paper, and composed a cohesive piece with many students' work represented in each. The students took that design and using an overhead projector then copied the design onto the large wooden mural boards (1 board for the smaller one and 3 boards for the larger one). Then the painting began. First backgrounds and sky, then outlining and detail, all the while adding layers and shading. Finally they added shadows and touch up work. It was really an amazing process to watch. Sally is amazing!

We have an artist scheduled for January and another in March which center around photography and kinetic art. There is a possible 3rd artist but we haven't worked out the details for that as of yet. 

Here are some photos of the work in progess. Go see these murals; they are stunning!